Here we go again. Samsung (and its agency) has historically had no problem poking fun at overly-obsessed, iPhone-idolizing Apple fanatics, and just like clockwork, the Korean electronics giant has released a new commercial pointing out a handful of the iPhone 5’s omissions and foibles.

In case you don’t have a minute and a half to burn, here’s the whole thing in a nutshell: the commercial pokes at Apple’s (perhaps overly earnest) marketing language, the headphone jack’s new location, the new Lightning dock connector (twice!), the lack of NFC, and the general un-coolness of lusting after a smartphone your parents will probably want to own at some point too.

The message is, clearly, that the iPhone 5 just doesn’t match up to Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S III. The accuracy of that point of view is an issue I’ll leave for you to debate, but it’s a feisty little ad that I think makes a few decent (if completely ham-fisted) points about the perceived feature gap between the two phones. Either way, it’s hard to resist the temptation (for an ad nerd like me, anyway) to go digging for the commercial’s potential implications. Is going to put a dent in the iPhone 5′s sales? Hell no. As usual, people lined up nearly as soon as the damned thing was trotted out in San Francisco, and plenty of early reviews point out that the iPhone 5 seems like much more than just the sum of its changelog.

Interestingly enough, some people are already reading this commercial as an attempt to reach out to dyed-in-the-wool Apple customers (to see the errors of their ways, I guess). That seems like a hell of a stretch — after all, the portrayal of Apple line-goers as doe-eyed iPhone apologists probably won’t elicit much in the warm-and-fuzzy feelings department. It seems more like a way to keep the Galaxy S III name at the top of people’s minds when it comes time to buy a new phone, especially considering that Samsung’s sizable smartphone will be five or six months old — nearly ancient in mobile terms — once the holiday buying frenzy kicks off.

By the way, if you could use a laugh, be sure to check out the video’s comments on YouTube — you’ll surely see platform fanboyism at its finest.

If you’ve been paying attention at all, you know that the next iPhone is right around the corner. Apple has sent out invites to a September 12 event — that’s on Wednesday, by the way — just as we’ve long expected.

The event is to be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which just so happens to be located right next to the hotel we’re staying at for Disrupt (Hackathon begins today, by the way). In proper Apple fashion, the company has already begun preparation for the announcement event, hanging a massive Apple banner outside of the huge event center.

The banner has the same rainbow-flavored background that Apple’s been using for a while for its events.

The next iPhone will no doubt make a big splash. It’s got a larger screen, marking the first time that Apple has ventured from the 3.5-inch sweet spot. It’ll also have a new, smaller mini-port, along with a two-tone metal backplate and possibly NFC.

We reported earlier this month that Apple will release the next iPhone on September 21, and things seem to be matching up well for this.

Editor’s Note:Brenden Mulligan is an entrepreneur and product designer who created Onesheet, Webbygram, TipList, ArtistData, MorningPics, and PhotoPile. You can find him on Twitter at @mulligan.

QR codes are everywhere. Frustratingly everywhere in my opinion. Countless companies put them on marketing materials, but not a single person I know actually scans them. I’m friends with lots of smartphone owners, and I’ve literally never, ever seen someone pull out their phone and scan a QR code.

There are even a handful of startups that consider QR codes part of their core offering to small businesses. They’re relying on people actually scanning these stupid things for their products to work. Silly.

However, as negative as I am about them, QR codes actually make a lot of sense. One of the most challenging things about the gluttony of digital offerings is bridging the gap between the digital and physical world. Mobile devices present the opportunity to do this better than ever. If I’m standing at a store, and they want me to follow them on Twitter, mobile devices allow me to follow them immediately, as opposed to waiting until I get home to do it.

QR codes simplify it even more. It’s much easier for me to scan a code and have it take me directly to their Twitter page than have to type in their username. Or even better, if I get a reward for taking a digital action, like filling out a survey, it’s easier to get me to the survey with a scanned code than giving me a URL to enter.

When asking around about why friends don’t use QR codes they claim they don’t have a way to scan them, even though doing a search for “QR scan” in Apple’s app store returns over 500 results.

If the problem is that people don’t have scanners installed, one straightforward solution would be for Apple and Google to include a standalone QR Code app with iOS and Android. Then at least most people with smartphones could scan the code without having to download another app. But I’m not convinced this would solve the problem. Asking someone to launch a specialized app to complete a task is asking for a change in behavior that most users probably aren’t willing to do.

Another solution is to fix the problem by using another technology, like location gating or NFC. But implementation of both of these would be costly and difficult. It would obviously never make sense for a business to embed NFC chips in every coffee cup they sell, and marketing materials are not always associated with just one location.

So what’s the ideal solution, assuming the goal is to get people to actually use these codes? My suggestion would be to make the camera software just a little bit smarter.

To truly take QR codes to the mainstream, Apple and Google should actually build a scanner into the camera logic. Similar to how the camera senses how much light there is, or if a picture is in focus, it could scan whether or not a QR code was in the frame. This would essentially turn your camera into a constant QR scanner.

If a QR code happens to be in the frame, a message would pop up asking if you’d like to follow the link. If you hit ignore, QR codes would be ignored until the next time you launch the app. No separate app, no new behavior. Just an extension of existing behavior. And of course, you could always turn this off in settings.

Probably not as simple to implement as it seems, but think of the implications.

Imagine how different this experience would be for consumers. Instead being told “Scan this code with a QR Code Scanner app on your phone”, the user would be told “Take a photo of this!” That experience would make so much more sense to 90% of users. Open camera, point phone at code, get sent where you need to go.

Simple. It might make having these codes all over the place actually worthwhile.

How many iOS charger cables do you own? You know, the 30-pin connector that’s been packaged alongside every iPod, iPhone and iPad for as long as I can remember. Personally, I own seven. Each of my friends and colleagues has (at the very least) more than one of these wires. Essentially, if you’ve owned an iThing for more than a few months, especially an iPhone, you probably own more than one cable, too.

But the next-gen iPhone, and its 8-pin mini port, will change more than the iThing accessories industry. Sure, there are millions of docks, charging cases, etc. that will have trouble with this transition. But Apple will no doubt sell a connector for backwards compatibility, probably for around $30. This will cause some confusion with people less well-versed in technology, and it will probably take a couple years to get back to cable/dock ubiquity.

Remember the shift from serial ports to USB ports in computers? That mess took more than a decade to get settled, and PCs shipped with serial ports for a few years after USB was implemented as an industry standard. It’ll be a long road ahead.

But the real issue isn’t the accessories ecosystem, it’s the ubiquity of the current iCable model.

Think of it this way. Last we heard, Apple had sold 167 million iDevices in the U.S., including the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. For the record, that’s about half of the U.S. population. Globally, the company has sold over 365 million iThings. And those are just devices. Now consider the fact that most of those iDevice owners have multiple cables, and that many of them are repeat customers, meaning they have one for each iThing they’ve purchased.

That is a lot of charging cables. And the kicker is that we’ve grown accustomed to this lifestyle. Forgot your charger? No worries. Your friend has one at his house, or your mom has one in her car. Hell, the waitress at the restaurant probably has one.

The other night, I was at dinner with a few friends. One of them reached for his phone, held it out to the waitress, and asked that she plug it in. It wasn’t attached to a charger, but it was an iPhone. To my surprise, she took the phone and plugged it in near the kitchen — an iPhone charger was already ready and waiting for a device to charge.

When the new iPhone launches, there will probably be millions of new iPhone owners in the U.S. within the first few weeks. But for each owner, there will be only one cable. Granted, that little white block that plugs into the wall with a USB port will still work with your new cable, but all your old cables instantly become useless with the new iPhone.

Losing your new 8-pin cable is out of the question, unless you’re clever enough to stock up on iPhone day. Proud fanbois will need to undergo a pretty major adjustment in their mindset, being ever-mindful of their bat-life situation, and remembering to bring a charger with them everywhere.

Remember, the iPhone 4S had some pretty nasty battery life issues, so it’s just plain foolish to think the next iPhone will be any better. In fact, we’ve learned that the iPhone 5 will only get a 10mAh boost from the iPhone 4S battery, at 1440mAh. That’s less than half of the 3300mAh battery in the Droid Razr Maxx, the current heavyweight champion of smartphone batteries.

Then let’s weigh in new Siri capabilities — hopefully the personal assistant will actually be useful, and thus used, this time around. Add to that a 4G LTE radio, which will most certainly be present in the next iPhone, along with more energy efficient tech like NFC and Bluetooth 4, and what are you left with? Really shitty battery life.

But when you’re out in the world, having dinner at a friend’s house, that familiar little white wire probably won’t be there for you anymore. You didn’t think to bring your own cable because you rarely ever had to. And while all your friends are tweeting, Instagramming, and being generally merry, you’ll be staring into your brand new iPhone watching that spinning wheel of death expel the final breaths from your precious.

It sounds like a first world problem. And it is. But I can assure you of this: A month after the iPhone launches, once battery life really begins to wear on people, the number of new iPhone owners will be far greater than one percent.